"Okay. Thank you."

Mr. Tower comes in, smiling broadly. He smells like a zoo.

"Hello! I've been told to call you Anna-Seraphina and definitely not just the first bit, right?"

"Yeah. If you can't do the whole thing Sera is okay but I like the whole thing better."

"Can do. Okay, so I'm Kent Tower, and you've probably heard I do a lot of work as a zookeeper. I know some folk don't like animals too much... Well, I take care of lots of them, so if you're not too fond of critters or allergic to any of them - wait doesn't that go away because of the magic? Anyway. Life with me will involve spending time with animals. Just putting that out there so it's in no way shape or form a surprise."

"I guess I don't know if I like animals or not. I've never had a pet or anything."

He tilts his head and laughs. "To me, that's almost like saying 'I've never played on the playground or seen a TV or anything'. I didn't bring anyone with me who you could get to know, though. Wasn't sure they'd let me."

"That makes sense," she nods.

He pauses, waiting for her to go on, but when she doesn't, "Animals can be great friends as long as you make an effort to understand them and treat them with kindness. I don't command them, you know. At least, not the real ones. The energy-animals I can make, I command. But real ones, I talk to them. I've worked in abused pet shelters you know." Pause. "It's why I volunteered when you happened. A dog that bites a human is put down almost all of the time. But it's not her fault. She doesn't know any better..."

"I--thank you."

Pause.

"What are some animals you know like?"

He can go into quite a bit of detail on this!

Birds are especially sensitive to sudden movement, and his sparrows are very much soothed when someone moves smoothly around them. Cats need to get used to you before liking even being directly looked at, and tend to not play well with other animals unless they already feel safe somewhere. His favorite goat, Yamul, always jumps in excitement when Kent brings a new animal into the rescue center... And so on and so forth. His explanatory patter feels tuned for grade school, but he clearly loves this kind of thing.

It's nice. She pays careful attention.

He sticks to domestic animals at first, but runs out of those soon enough. His attitude toward predation is a grimace and a shrug. "It's nature. What's a lion gonna do? I do prefer herbivores, though."

Eventually the foster guy gently suggests that they can probably talk more later and Sandra Liles is waiting patiently for her interview.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I wasn't looking at a clock..."

"Me neither. Eh. My fault for rambling on so long. Maybe I can show you the shelter and the zoo even if there's no guardianship some day, Ser- Anna-Seraphina."

"Maybe."

There is the sound of arguing from outside.

The guy from the foster office comes in after a couple of minutes. "Er... Sandra Liles has, um, removed herself from consideration."

"...Oh. Okay."

He'd probably explain if she asked. But she's pretty clearly not asking.

"The officers say it's time to go back to the holding area for now, Miss Sawyer. Exercise at eight P.M. if you want it. Either Mr. Tower or Miss Vasquez could take you in as early as tomorrow - and while you can express a preference the decision is not entirely in your or my hands, unfortunately."

"They're both okay. ...I think I liked Mr. Tower better, though."

"And Jun is out because she took an injury fighting a Troll today. She should be fine, but since she'll be recovering... I'll make a note about Kent Tower, though. Have as nice a day as you can manage, Anna-Seraphina."

"Thank you."

Back to her mediocre fantasy novel, then, presumably.

Yeah. Until...dinner, presumably, and she definitely wants the 8 pm exercise.

She can have 8 PM exercise. It's not outside this time because it's raining, they take her to a gym instead.

...She should probably not generate large quantities of water inside the gym! Okay, now she can let her spear out and see if she can remember much of use from gym class.